Wow, obviously I was the only person - ever - to not be into metal when I was younger. I don't even have enough knowledge of this subject to say classic or dud, but I will say they have never been my cup of tea. The whole aesthetic of that genre always put me off.

The first song that I loved was The Orb's Little Fluffy Clouds (live), and that is what made me start exploring music a bit. I didn't take interest in any form of rock until some years later when I was almost out of high school. To this day, I don't think I could really enjoy 70s/80s metal.

[I couldn't believe that Sabbath even deserved the classic/dud treatment, because I couldn't believe that ANYONE considered 'em duds. I was gonna post an are-you-kidding? reply immediately after my "DUD" assessment. But just before I did, I read Xgau's little blurb about "drug-impaired reaction time" and thought it would be HIGH-larious to wait awhile before changing my opinion, then finally changing it FOR REAL, and then blaming my long delay on...yep, you guessed it! It might've been funnier if I'd waited a day or two, but I've always been terribly impatient.]

Anyway, again, CLASSIC through first six albums; and even the inferior Dio and Gillan lineups produced a great LP between 'em.

Finally, one of these days I'm going to finally buy Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die, just to see if they're really as bad as they're reputed.

Aha! Myonga - xpost - I suspected as much (well, I'll say that now). But it's got to only be a matter of time before someone answers dud for real... and I'll have to check out "Never Say Die" which slipped completely beneath my radar.

Had a brief discussion w/Adrien yesterday re the album title - my theory is that 13 counts the 8 albums with Ozzy, the 3 with Dio (including Dehumanizer) and Born Again. Sorry, Glenn Hughes and Tony Martin - you don't count.

"He's just a vibe merchant, really. He vibes you up. He's not one who gets involved hands-on," Iommi said. "He leaves it to you to do it and he sort of says, 'Yeah, I like it,' you know, or, 'I don't like it.'"

In Shut Up and Sing it's evident that Rubin didn't even set foot in the studio for the Dixie Chicks' Taking The Long Way. They show up at his house and play him what they've done so far. He says "Nice chorus" or "That sounds good." The only reasonable conclusion one could draw is that he's running a con job. Coincidentally or not, the production on that record is abysmal.

Rubin produced the third Slipknot album, and their singer, Corey Taylor, said this about that in 2011:

"There are some people who would love for me to toe the party line, which is basically, 'Working with Rick Rubin was a very enriching experience.' Let me give you the fucking truth of it: Rick Rubin showed up for 45 minutes a week. Rick Rubin would then, during that 45 minutes, lay on a couch and have a mic brought in next to his face so he wouldn't have to move...The Rick Rubin of today is a thin, thin, thin shadow of the Rick Rubin that he was. He is overrated, he is overpaid, and I will never work with him again as long as I fucking live."

Nice to finally hear someone call Rubin out. Really seems like he's been coasting on his rep for a while. But it benefits both parties: bands get the "cred" (such as it is) and resulting uptick in sales (however small) of having Rubin's name on their record (sound apparently being a secondary concern), and Rubin gets the dough.

iirc in that Jay-Z doc RR was in there making beats like he did in the 80s. but as far as having any hands-on involvement when making a record means putting mics in front of instruments and putting hands on the mixing board, yeah.

On those first four Danzig albums, he's producer on the first few, "executive producer" on the fourth one. Either way, he tends to use great studios and obviously hires some excellent engineers. But yeah, Reign in Blood was a long time ago.

I hope he can help Sabbath not sound overproduced. The Heaven & Hell record was perfect. I don't believe this will be nearly as good as that was.

gonna need a lot of smoothing for Ozzy's vocals, and pitch correction.....Dio was still singing pretty incredibly on that H&H studio album, but yeah the production on that was perfect for what they were doing.

Rubin produced the third Slipknot album, and their singer, Corey Taylor, said this about that in 2011:

"There are some people who would love for me to toe the party line, which is basically, 'Working with Rick Rubin was a very enriching experience.' Let me give you the fucking truth of it: Rick Rubin showed up for 45 minutes a week. Rick Rubin would then, during that 45 minutes, lay on a couch and have a mic brought in next to his face so he wouldn't have to move...The Rick Rubin of today is a thin, thin, thin shadow of the Rick Rubin that he was. He is overrated, he is overpaid, and I will never work with him again as long as I fucking live."